


Crosscurrent

by smilebackwards



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-02
Updated: 2012-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-28 17:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa remembers Lion's Tooth flying into the Trident, but that first night, with Arya fled into the black of the woods, she'd dreamed that it was Arya's wooden broom handle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crosscurrent

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishie/gifts).



> Sansa's perspective on the fight at the Ruby Ford. Goes a little AU because that's how I roll. Hope you enjoy and have a very happy new year!
> 
> Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George R. R. Martin. Some quotations are taken directly from A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin.

It takes them four days to find Arya in the woods; four days and three nights. Sansa has played the fight at the Ruby Ford over in her mind too many times to count, and dreamt it again and again, the order of events jumbled, shaken and reassembled like the wooden puzzles she and Bran used to piece together until they formed rough-hewn carvings of stately Queen Alyssane or Brandon the Burner, holding a torch to his lord father's five thousand ships.

Sansa's pieces don't fit together so neatly.

She wishes she'd been able to tell the story to her father right when she'd come rushing back to the camp, Joffrey's blood on her hands from her feeble attempt to staunch the bite wounds on his forearm before he shoved her away. She should have been calm and commanding, as befit a lady of her station, rather than shaking and sobbing, clutching at the first person she came upon. The Hound had barely gotten Joffrey's name and a finger pointing in the prince's direction out of her.

"Don't cry, girl," he'd said, gruff, taking Sansa's chin in one hand and swiping away her tears with a calloused thumb. He'd pulled a tattered handkerchief from a sleeve and wiped the red off her hands before giving her a gentle push toward the tents of the northmen.

Her father held her close when she stumbled through the tent flap and into his arms. "Are you all right?" he'd asked. "Sansa? Sansa, where is Arya?"

"I don't know," Sansa wept.

Sansa remembers Lion's Tooth flying into the Trident, but that first night, with Arya fled into the black of the woods, she'd dreamed that it was Arya's wooden broom handle. Lion's Tooth flashed in Joffrey's hand and then it flashed across Arya's neck and Sansa woke gasping.

Sansa remembers the clacking of wooden swords, the freckled face of the butcher's boy, the grey tangle of Nymeria's fur. She remembers the words, "I won't hurt you...much," but sometimes it's Joffrey saying it and sometimes it Arya.

The morning they find Arya, Sansa is pulled from a nightmare dream of Joffrey staring up at the perfect blue of the sky with sightless eyes as Lady licks at the gush of blood from his open throat. When her father calls her forward to tell what happened at the ford, Sansa can't say. "I don't know," she stutters. "I...I don't remember."

Arya's eyes burn with hatred. "Liar!" she shouts, coming at Sansa. Sansa flinches back from the wooden broom handle in her hand, but when Arya punches her, it's with an empty fist. Jory pulls Arya off her and Sansa tries to follow the thread of the argument, ears ringing from Arya's blows. A hundred gold dragons for Nymeria's pelt, but Nymeria has melted away.

"We have a wolf," Queen Cersei says.

_We have a wolf,_ Sansa repeats, trying to decipher the quiet triumph in the queen's tone, the snapping light in her eyes, like she's won something. _We have a wolf..._ Sansa's hands fly to her mouth. _No, no, she can't mean..._

King Robert sighs, gusty and annoyed. "As you will," he says. "Have Ser Ilyan see to it."

_No,_ Sansa thinks, remembering Ser Ilyan's silent malice, the way she'd crouched beside Lady, frightened, and Lady, usually so placid and well-behaved, had snapped her jaws at Ser Ilyan. _The King's Justice..._

"A direwolf is a savage beast," King Robert says in response to her father's protests. "Sooner or later it would have turned on your girl the same way the other did on my son. Get her a dog, she'll be happier for it."

Joffrey laughs and Sansa turns to stare at him, the starting blur of tears in her eyes turning his fine blond hair to a golden crown. "Here, my lady," Joff says, mock-courteous, the corner of his smile sharp as the point of a blade. "Have mine." He shoves Sansa at the Hound. Her chin hits his steel plate solidly and Sansa feels her teeth cut through her bottom lip, tastes blood as it fills her mouth and trickles down her chin.

Behind her, Sansa hears Joffrey cry out and Queen Cersei shouts, "Robert!" her voice outraged.

In front of her, Sandor Clegane tips up her chin. He goes to reach into his sleeve, but Sansa already has his tattered handkerchief, red with blood. She draws it from her own sleeve and dabs at her mouth. The blood smears like the potted red lip paint Rolan Archer's elegant Myrish wife showed her when she visited Winterfell two seasons ago.

Sansa feels the hair on her arms rise like prickles, standing on end the way Lady's fur did when she snarled at Ilyan Payne. When she turns to face Joffrey, Sansa smiles. Joffrey's face goes milk pale.

"There's blood on your teeth," Arya says, her voice edged with respect.

It's not enough to save Lady.

King Robert stares at Sansa for a long time, but he turns his back in the end. Lord Eddard's face is thunderous when he calls for Ice.

Sansa feels craven, but she can't even bear to watch. She huddles on her camp bed and when Arya comes in to sit beside her, silent and angry, Sansa reaches for her hand. _This is what it has taken for us to feel like sisters,_ Sansa thinks. She feels a sharp pain in her chest, like someone's slipped a dagger beneath her breastbone, and curls forward with a soft cry.

"Sansa?" Arya whispers.

Sansa shakes her head, can't speak. Something wet drips onto her knee, but it's not blood.

_Something's missing,_ Sansa thinks numbly when they reach King's Landing. She has her own chambers in the Tower of the Hand and a four foot tall looking glass to stand in front of and admire the cloth-of-gold gown Queen Cersei sends to accompany a necklace from Joffrey. The ruby at the end of the gold chain is as large as a robin's egg, but it stings when it bumps against Sansa's breastbone. She leaves it on her dressing table before going down to the tourney grounds.

Joffrey opens his mouth when Sansa sits coolly beside him in the stands. Queen Cersei puts a quelling hand on his arm and the jeer dies in his throat. He turns away, face suffused with an angry flush.

Sansa watches the jousting dispassionately until the Hound appears on the field, clad in his dented steel plate over a faded leather jerkin. Sansa waves a ragged handkerchief and the Hound turns his black stallion toward the stands. When he's close enough to the pavilion, Sansa probes her cut lip with her tongue and leans forward to tie her favor around Sandor Clegane's arm. His eyes flicker to Joffrey for a bare moment before they fasten on Sansa's face.

When she goes to sit back, her hand brushes against the fur cuff of Sandor's jerkin. It tickles her skin, warm and soft, like a wolf pelt.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Divergence (the Crosscurrent Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069231) by [alamorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn)




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